A spatially distributed soil, agroclimatic and soil hydrological model to predict the effects of climate change and land use within the European Community

Detalles del proyecto

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CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Objetivo

The current project is developing a spatial model to quantify the effects of climate change on land-use. The central component of the model is change in the soil hydrological cycle. A major need is to extend data from intensive site experiments to soil map units so that land-use change can be mapped and quantified in terms of climate change. For soils, 'pedo-transfer' functions are used to estimate soil hydrological properties from simple soil physical properties. At present these functions are derived from simple statistical analysis of soil survey data from France and GB. The effect of terrain (especially slope and aspect) is currently little modelled mostly due to lack of digital data and techniques for interpretation. Both the approach to pedo-transfer functions, and to terrain analysis, are in need of considerable improvement - mathematically, and in their application to larger areas of the Community. The proposed project will apply recently-developed, sophisticated mathematical techniques to derive robust algorithms for the estimation of the: soil water retention curve hydraulic conductivity field capacity water content total crop available water soil resistance to penetration They will be applicable to the soils of the whole of the European Community. The potential use of digital terrain data in land-use modelling will be investigated. Preliminary research shows strong relationships between both the fractal dimensions of soil porosity, and the variables listed above. also the fractal properties of the soil pore space and of the landscape are similar. These relationships give the potential benefit of a coherent mathematical tool to quantify the transfer of soil data from single sites to the wider landscape.